Hip pain

[bhs]

After reading the thread on hip replacement Im a little scared. Last year while rounding 1 ball I pushed hard on my rear foot (RFF) to get the ski to come around and I felt a pop in my left hip. Startled me but I dint have any pain. This year it happened again at the beginning of the season and now I have pain all day after I ski, kinda of a dull ache. The last two years I have had my bindings real close and I am wondering if this is part of the problem. Any one out there have a similar experience? If so what have you done to fix it? Thanks

[lpskier]

One word of advice: Chiropractor.

[6balls]

I can't think binding position matters.  Would see what happens after the stress of the season is over and if it settles down, call it good.  If you choose chiropractic care and it doesn't help, consider xray, and if negative MRI arthrogram to look for labral tear. 

[skibug]

See a sports orientated Orthopedic Surgeon and cut to the chase.  Get the diagnosis; then determine how to proceed.  Depending on the results a chiropracter may be what you need; but, figuring it out early is the key.  Could be labral tear, could be aggrevated ligament, you need to know before you can decide on a treatment.

[eleeski]

I had a similar hip issue when I had my rear binding canted the wrong way. The performance was good but it hurt my hip. Canting the rear binding the normal direction cost me a buoy but ended the hip pain. Maybe something is wrong with your binding setup. If nothing major is medically wrong, change the binding position and see if that helps.

Eric

[Gloersen]

Follow Skibug's advice; the sooner the better.

[T-UP]

Try stretching. When I ski a lot I have extreme hip pain in my back leg. This year I have skied more then I have in years, but what has allowed me to do so is stretching after skiing. I spend about 20 minutes stretching after skiing.

[miski]

I had same thing w/ regular pain. Mike McCormick told me about Lucky, Lapoint, & other long time slashers having rear hip replacement & recomended rotating my rear binding as far as possible. He helped me cut left rear & right front plate & horsehoes (willey at the time) so heel was as far left and toes far right (I am LFF).

 

Was a big challenge getting back to same level of skiing - had to figure out hoe to keep rear knee in behind front - but hip pain was gone right away and hasn't come back in 2 years.

 

Stretching hip sockets is also big help for everything - back, hamstrings in addition to hip. It takes some odd contortions to get stretch around all 360deg, but it's maybe most important stretch for my body.

 

Good luck whatever you choose to do!

[Than_Bogan]

skibug is indeed exactly right.

But I'd suggest chiropractic be PART of your treatment in any case.  But be careful.  There is more variety of skill and knowledge among chiropractors than among some other medical professionals.  Make sure you get a personal recommendation and go to somebody who has sport-specific training and treats a lot of athletes.

I've got an awesome one here in Natick, MA, for whatever that is worth...  With my genetic disc "issues" I doubt I'd be skiing at all without his help over the years.

[bhs]

Thanks for the feedback. I turned 41 this year and I was wondering if the hip might be an age thing. However two years ago I switched to a Reflex binding with a modified reflex rear boot and its slightly canted the opposite direction so like Eric said I think I need to cant it back the other direction. Also, today I set up an appointment with an sports minded ortho.

[lpskier]

Rotating the binding is a ski tuning technique. Rotating the binding may relieve your hip pain but it will significantly effect how the ski turns, for better or worse. Making a big adjustment in the binding rotation is like making a big fin adjustment. Big adjustments are usually not recommended. Fogman invented and patented the rotational binding. Several ski companies have licensed the technology from Fogman and others infringe.

[eleeski]

The counter-rotated back binding gave me real performance improvement. But my hip was not strong enough to handle it. The large change I had to make in binding mounting (back to a traditional rotation) allowed me to continue skiing. I have to adapt other aspects of my style to compensate. Or get a new ski.

Fogmans are very innovative. But just binding mounting angle predates hardshells (and Fogman) by decades. And when I put my hole template upside down and get a reverse rotation - well I'll try it! It worked until it hurt my hip. Drill new holes to protect the body...

Eric

[6balls]

You are after an ortho surgeon who did a sports medicine fellowship following his ortho residency...my lifting buddy from med school did just that so I'm lucky to have email/phone access to such an expert.  Hopefully if you can find such a doc near you he/she works w/a great physical therapy department/athletic trainer as well.  Even better if such a doc was once a high end athlete themselves...they then understand what is the best choice medically, but also the mentality of the competitor.     

[bhs]

The Doc is a Cat II roadie and the local hip guru so I have my fingers crossed.

 

Rear boot is a Reflex with the cuff taken off and some plastic removed. When I first got it the back boot had a large gap from the front and was rotated way out. i found it un-skiable. So I removed some plastic from the toe and got it as close and straight as possible to the front. However when I tightened it all up I found that the boot was slightly pigeon toed. As I said one day coming around an offside buoy running late I pushed hard with my rear leg and felt the pop. Im pretty sure I can rotate it back slightly off center and not change performance to much.

 

But this brings up a question. It has been years since I used a toe loop and for those who do, do you ever find that you rotate your foot out? Does your foot ever move at anytime while skiing?

[bhs]

Anyone out there gone from using a rear boot to a toe loop? and if so how hard was the transition?

Thanks!

[lkb]

I did it this spring after being on double hard-shells for 7 seasons. It really wasn't too hard. I was pretty much back to normal in 10 or 12 sets.

[Drago]

_{bhs,  that used to happen to me all the time, in my off-side turn.} this will sound a little weird, but _{I had to set up the ski differently. Went wayy deeper so it didn't slide through my off side [which made the ski rotate and put my hips in a difficult position when the load kicked in], and went with less length, requiring me to be more forward on the ski and taking weight off my back foot/hip. Kind of did a reverse-modified Schnitz rule-of-thumb: went shorter and shorter until I just couldn't turn the ski anymore [wheelies], then I left it there and let my skiing/body adapt. Worked like a charm. I'm 47.}

[thager]

I was having hip soreness following sets. LFF I turned the rear boot to the left which is backwards from the normal pivot but the soreness went away. Bonus is that my offside turns became better and it doesn't seem to have effected my onside turn.

[Horton]

@motoskier

 

[WaterSkier12]

Get an X-ray...

[oldjeep]

Definitely see a doctor. My wife is terrible about ever going in and when I finally convinced her last season she found out that she had labral tears in both hips. Not really something that heals on its own, but knowledge is power and an early trip to the orthopod is a lot cheaper than a later one.

[DaveD]

.....and a MRI. In Michigan, we can get MRI's at Basha for $250 on weekends not using insurance. That's dirt cheap if you consider the time savings in diagnosing the issue.

[jimmyjamesbrown]

When y'all talking about boot angles, I'm a bit confused. I'm RFF and front foot points to the right, rear points to left a bit. Is that normal? Better for the hips?

 

I've had left hip (rear) pain for couple years...doc thinks early arthritis (I'm 41), but I'm seeing a specialist soon as Ortho physiotherapist suspects maybe lebral tear (didn't show on MRI). I never suspected was skiing related (don't get to ski too much, every other weekend maybe during short Canadian season....and doesn't go away in winter)....but seeing these comments and the other related thread, maybe.....

[WaterSkier12]

Be careful with dirt cheap MRI’s, the images can be substandard and pay close attention to who is reading them. A Musculoskeletal Radiologist who looks at them all day is ur best bet

[lpskier]

I dealt with chronic hip pain for 25 years. Fact if life after crashing a horse in 1979. Three years ago I started a new pre-ski warm up that involves 30 squats keeping the tib/fib perpendicular to the floor. Hold on the a ski handle or something for balance so you can shoot your hips back without loosing your balance. Stand up straight at the top of each squat. Then do 20 more each leg with your opposite ankle over the knee of the squating leg. As you squat to 90 degrees, get the non-squating leg as close to parallel with the floor as you can by pushing the knee towards the floor. Stretch into the squat going down and relax out of the squat coming up.

 

With the handle on the pylon you can do this stretch in the boat. I do it while we drive to the slalom course each morning (meaning I’ll be doing them in about 45 minutes). Throw in 20 push ups with feet on the floor and hands on the gunwale and you’re ready to ski.

 

I used to have to go to PT every summer for hip pain. Now I am totally hip pain free. My doctors diagnosed arthritis, a bone spur in the hip, and “John, you are getting old and it might be time to slow down.” Ha! Suckers.